tl;dr: It is definitely more difficult than most people think, because most people's thoughts(even scientifically educated ones) are heavily influenced by sci-fi, which is almost invariably premised on having easy interstellar transport. Even the authors like Clarke with difficult interstellar transport assume that the obvious problems(e.g., lightspeed) remain, but the non-obvious problems(e.g., what happens when something breaks when you're two light-years from the nearest macroscopic object) disappear.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.